The Combined Lake Delhi Recreational Facility and Water Quality District
Board of Trustees Meeting
Friday, August 1, 2014– 3:00 pm.
Heritage Bank Conference Room
Delhi, IA
A special meeting of the Combined Lake Delhi Recreational Facility and Water Quality District Board of Trustees was called to order by President Steve Leonard at 3:15pm at the Heritage Bank Conference Room.
Trustees present: Burger, Colgan, Davidson, Gifford, Leonard, Kramer
Trustees absent: Kray
Visitors: Lou & Sue Christensen, Ken & Barbara DeKlotz, Greg Colgan, Chloe Colgan, Ed Schmidt, Pat & Don Dede, Jason Wenger, Larry & Kathy Aschbrenner, Sara Millhouse, Lola Galiher
The agenda was presented by President Leonard. Burger made motion to approve agenda, Davidson second. Motion carried.
Leonard welcomed Pat Colgan as a newly elected Trustee and expressed his gratitude to Bruce Schneider, who decided not to run for re-election, for his years of service as a member of the Trustee board.
The first item on the agenda was election of officers. Leonard asked for a motion to discuss the process of the election of officers. Burger made a motion that we continue with the current officers for the next 60 days so that we can hold some work sessions with goal settings and then hold a permanent election after that. Davidson seconded the motion. A lengthy discussion was held which included how elections have been held in the past and how committees have been set, the vagueness of what is spelled out in Chapter 357E of the Iowa Code, which defines our recreational water quality district, and how we want to proceed going forward in working as a board. After more discussion, Gifford recommended amending the motion to set the re-election of officers by October 1st, Burger seconded the motion. Motion carried.
The next agenda item was to consider and approve change order #3 from Lunda Construction in the amount of $2,338.50. The work is required due to the advantage of using the two tubes to dewater the upstream side of the project for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 work. This may help Phase 2 bids to be significantly less due to a potentially smaller main channel cofferdam required of the Phase 2 contractor. Colgan and Stanley Engineering recommended this change order and three of the trustees signed off on it earlier this week per the resolution we approved previously giving the Board the ability to do so. Leonard asked for a motion to officially approve change order #3. Davidson made the motion to approve, Burger second. Motion carried.
Jason Wenger from The Burrington Group, Inc., provided the board with a summary of the bids for the Rock Nook Association Water Treatment solution. The board received one bid from Groth Services in the amount of $242,431.05. Wenger said the board could either accept the bid as received or reject and ask to have the project rebid. He indicated that there were four other bidders who declined to bid at the last minute because of the November timeline. Gifford indicated his disappointment in having only one bid. Following discussion, a motion was made by Colgan, second by Burger to accept the bid from Groth Services. Burger, Colgan, Leonard and Kramer voted yes. Davidson and Gifford voted no. Motion carried.
Leonard opened the meeting up for public comment. There being none, Burger made the motion to adjourn, second by Davidson. Motion carried.
A work session followed immediately after the special meeting. Two items were scheduled for discussion.
The first item was discussion of funding for various lake activities. Gifford asked for this item to be put on the agenda. He spoke of conversations he’s had with various people regarding whether or not the District should invest in lobbyists or not. He commented that one of the key things lobbyists can do for the District is help gain funding from various state and federal agencies. Gifford said he thought there was a varying opinion among the Trustees as to whether we should pursue funding and that was why he asked for some discussion.
Burger expressed his concern about funding sources and if there would be matching funds associated with different grants and, if so, how much would the District have to come up with and where would those monies come from. He would like more information on the matching amounts and would like to have more discussion at our future work sessions.
Colgan expressed his support to keep the lobbyists until at least next summer and likened them to be somewhat of an “insurance policy” during the reconstruction period. He also said he needs more information regarding the funding sources and the matching fund but at this point he feels it’s prudent to continue working with our lobbyists.
Leonard commented that the District has needs and is always going to have needs even after the dam is built. He feels the District has lots of goals with limited funding ability. He feels we need to find a balance. He also mentioned his concern that dredging is becoming an increasing frequent need and the District is going to have to have a plan for this and will need to be prepared.
Gifford felt this discussion was helpful. Leonard asked that next step be to define what our projects are and assign project managers. Lola Galiher reminded the Trustees that quite awhile back there were sign-up sheets for various projects and wondered if those lists still existed. Leonard responded that the District still had those volunteer sign-up sheets and will use them moving forward.
Leonard reminded the group that when the three-member board went to a seven-member board we were in an emergency situation. Colgan said he did not want to disparage what the past board has done and said it was incredible, when the dam went out, how things were very chaotic but then how so many things got organized and so much was accomplished. He then said now is a good time to look forward and decide how we want to operate moving forward. He asked Gifford and Colgan discuss their thoughts. Colgan again said he thinks we need a work session and need to be pro-active as a board and his hope is that we can work together as a unified board to get our goals accomplished. Gifford asked if we wanted to have these discussions at our next work session and Colgan said yes. Leonard ask if, at this meeting, Colgan and Gifford could talk about what their ideas are so that we could set a date for another work session and have an objective for that meeting of what we need to accomplish. Colgan said he wanted it understood that he is more about what we need to do versus how it gets done. Gifford said how he is seeing this, from a chart standpoint, is that we need to determine our value / goals and beneath that we need to determine the necessary projects and beneath that we need to choose our project manager/s and team members. He also asked if this was going to be done at a future meeting. Colgan thought we should have a meeting in the next several weeks. Burger said he feels we need to identify and then prioritize our projects by money and by year. There will be things we can’t do right now. There are things we don’t have funding for. Some projects may be conditional based on funding.
Leonard said he envisioned a work session that could last anywhere from 3-4 hours. Colgan expressed an interest in having the work session away from our current meeting place to allow the board members to more freely express themselves. Gifford agreed that a change of venue is a good idea and that we could facilitate our own meeting and sees this as an annual process.
Leonard asked for dates that might work and the general consensus was to hold it on the date of our next regular meeting, which is Thursday, August 21st earlier in the day at a location to be determined.
Barb DeKlotz raised the question of why we need the lobbyists when we have people on the lake who are able to write grants. Leonard explained that the lobbyists won’t write the grants but they will take a well-written grant and turn it into a great application and have higher probability of success.
Larry Aschbrenner asked if the board as the board reviews project objectives would they be asking for thoughts from folks on the lake. Leonard said as we define the high level projects we will need ideas and help from the community. Gifford thought a survey might be a great way to ask for information. Several thoughts were shared on how and when we send out a survey. The general consensus was that we need to get the survey out fairly quickly before our September 21 meeting. Gifford suggested that rather than present specifics issues on the survey for feedback from residents, the Board ask for general input. As an example, “What to do think are the biggest issues facing Lake Delhi and tag them as urgent, not urgent, etc.” It was generally agreed that the survey ask this question first and after tallying the information another survey could be sent out asking for volunteers who have expertise in the project areas to step forward.
Burger made a motion to adjourn from the work session at 5:45 p.m., Gifford seconded. Motion carried.